


these vain reflections

by cuideag



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Relationship(s), Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-02 05:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 18,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20270884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuideag/pseuds/cuideag
Summary: Nobody expected Delial Grimsong to become the Warrior of Light, least of all herself. But beggars cannot be choosers in the battle against fate, and when they are called upon the First, it is she who must stand against the tyranny of light.She had to give them something. They had to believe in something. But who is she to stand as their champion? And who is he, who lurks in her shadow?





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to this character's tumblr, @vanitysruin. With sincerest apologies to Urianger and whoever it is who writes his dialogue. Unbeta'd because I am a fool.

Once, when they were both secluded among the dust and books of the Waking Sands, Urianger told her of Moenbryda. Delial had always taken best to his company: he pried gently if when he was bold enough to pry at all, and despite his sagely and noble bearing he was so very easy to tease when the mood struck her so. They were both quiet, then, resigned to their study: after their success with the auracite, Delial in particular had become less and less interested in primals and more keen on learning of Ascians. Deep into one night, unprompted after bells and bells of silence, he spoke of her.

They knew of course of who Delial was beyond their vaunted champion. More often than not they called it a blessing, and she did not doubt that it had given them intimate familiarity with all she had done. Y'shtola and Thancred both had, in their own quietly menacing ways, made it well known that they had done their homework besides. It was only by matter of formality that they did not hide their distrust from their Warrior of Light. As with Urianger, she waged her wars with words first and foremost, but Hydaelyn's touch would suffer her few and fewer secrets.

She had not been at Carteneau like so many other warriors. It was in service to the Empire that she had spent the suns of the Calamity, and when the moon had failed to end it all, the resistance she had hunted so relentlessly since her younger years finally slipped a noose around Grimsong's neck. Never could she explain what it was exactly that let her walk away from what was to be her execution, just as she could not explain her preternatural instincts or the way she was ultimately drawn into a collision course with the Scions.

She had not been at Carteneau, but she had been close to one who had.

Urianger had been the first to notice the shift, the rapid fraying of the tenacity that had kept Grimsong going through all they'd seen together. Something had called her away, some private affair she refused to give voice to then and after. Not that she needed to: the blessing did not take long to speak on her behalf unbidden, to show him the crowd and the bay and the knight who had survived the fall of Dalamud only to welcome his end in her arms. When her senses returned her to the present, to her body shaking with shame and fury, Urianger set down the tome he'd been puzzling over and, gently, he spoke.

She knew what he meant to do and it made her feel no better. She burned bright as a star, brighter than any star, and she had been a long way towards burning out completely. She snapped and she snarled, letting loose the cruel things she bit back, all the vicious things she knew Thancred would give so much to hear her finally spit out that he might visit her the justice she knew he wanted. It was unfair, after all, that the wretched Kinslayer remained while his precious Minfilia did not.

"'Nary one among us could dare rightfully proclaim thine heart immune for want of a greater good," Urianger said, frustrating in his calm, infuriating in his knowing, and even as Delial's lips peeled back to snarl at him he raised a hand to bid her peace and continue. "For every wound inflicted upon every soul around you, thou wouldst feel it upon thine own twofold. But this blood thou see'st," he said, unwavering even as she flinched like a hound struck, "Painted in thy shadow for every yalm and malm taken spilleth forth from thee and naught else. From thee, and wounds thine heart hath suffered hitherto, and shall yet suffer henceforth. Dost thou mistrust us so absolutely? Dost thou truly believe thy burden is for thee, and thee alone?"

"Yes," she said and he knew as he always knew that she believed it. Delial wore the mantle of hero so poorly she muttered and groused every time anyone dared apply it to her, but she became a sharp and fierce thing when it came to brandishing the resolve and the convictions that helped her survive Van Baelsar's Ala Mhigo. "Did you welcome this?" she spat. "Did you welcome this fate? Did _she_?"

"Yes," he said, and she knew that he, too, believed it. They stared at one another, completely oblivious to the scattered works around them. Surely there were others that remained in those halls but, in the wake of their hero's rising voice, they might have made themselves scarce - not that she cared to notice. It was only then that she even realized she had stood up, with her palms planted upon her chosen table and her hands gripping its edges much too tight.

Urianger was the first to relent. The long line of his nose tipped back down towards his book and remained there for too many long moments. Enough for Delial to take a few breaths, to settle back down in her seat, the hard groan of wood dragged over stone floor the only sound she dared make for fear of bursting again. It was unlike her for all her faults to wield her rancor so openly. Only when she had collected herself again did Urianger speak up, his voice softer by degrees.

"The fault is our own. Thou art our champion, but thou remaineth apart. Such terrible, unworthy friends are we that thou thinkest us not friends at all." He nodded once and furrowed his brow over the dark circles of his goggles, owlish and severe. "... This we shalt remedy, I promise thee. Though fate would see fit to shaketh us thusly, it ever remains upon us to endeavor to earn and hold thee, and with thee thy trust in us. Thou art more than a weapon. We must needs remind ourselves thus."


	2. It was only natural.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was the Exarch and the Exarch alone who seemed able to treat the Ascian's presence with dignified dismissal.

It was the Exarch and the Exarch alone who seemed able to treat the Ascian's presence with dignified dismissal. Hidden as he may have been beneath that cowled hood, Delial could imagine a raised chin and narrowed eyes whenever Emet-Selch made his presence known. There was no doubting that the Exarch had gone through his fair share of troubles and had come out the stalwart soul that he was, but even she could not be so brave to regard so ancient a creature with such open disdain.

She knew him the moment she met his eye, gold falling upon gold. Later, in the times she was able to take rest and refuge away from the eyes of (almost) everyone, she wondered if there was something to the way Emet-Selch seemed to introduce himself to her and her alone. Did he know her as a traitor to the legacy that was his Empire? Did he know the uneasy peace she had made with the Resistance she once hunted, or the role she took in prying beloved Ala Mhigo out of the crown princes' hands? Her heart seized with an unfamiliar terror when first she saw him and she wondered, too, if he knew just how dumbstruck his very presence would leave the great Warrior of Light. If that, despite the airing of grievances, was why he had seemed so amused.

No one shied from voicing their suspicions. It seemed only sweet Minfilia, so unsure of her own heart, seemed reluctant to wholly condemn him and his offer. Delial full well knew the steps Emet-Selch was leading with: it was an easy thing to win over hearts with gentle and opportune truths, with a few acts of goodwill, a few smiles to the right people at the right times. Everything he said should have rung false, everything he did should have repulsed her, liar to liar. 

It did not.

It drew her to him instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now that I think on it, maybe this and the posted prologue should have been flipped. considerations for next time.


	3. it began without warning.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Scions were nothing if not a collective and, after a time, they collectively decided that the Exarch's approach to the Ascian in their midst was a sensible one after all.

The Scions were nothing if not a collective and, after a time, they collectively decided that the Exarch's approach to the Ascian in their midst was a sensible one after all. He took to haunting the spaces outside their circles, watchful as a hawk, quick to smirk the moment he caught her looking. He always caught her as it turned out, every time without fail. And when their meetings were adjourned and they each set to whatever task they had chosen for themselves, he lingered as she did with an expectant stare and an arch to his brow.

She did not know what moved her to speak to him alone the first time. She did not expect that he would humor her at that, lacing the answers he chose to give her with what felt like an appropriate amount of contempt. It felt to her like a show of respect somehow, that he might bear just enough vitrol to keep up the appearance of being unfriendly. Just as before, Delial could not help but feel it was amusing to him. One needed little else but the costume of a Garlean to raise the hackles of anyone in Eorzea, but he so brazenly slunk about in the skin and attire of none other than the esteemed Solus Zos Galvus. Thancred for one could not so much as breathe in his presence without coming mere ilms to foaming at the mouth.

"What is this?" she asked him once. When Emet-Selch, feigning interest in something just past her, blinked in feigned surprise at her, she elaborated. "The others we have met all came to us masked and robed as Ascians. And yet you do not."

"Can you blame me?" Emet-Selch pursed his lips took a regal pose not unlike the same she'd seen in the portraits and drawings of his many, many profiles. When he released it, he tapped at the band of medals that hung from the breast of his coat. "One does not get such charming little trinkets by being Ascian alone. Should I not be proud of my achievements?"

"What _does_ one get for being Ascian?"

"Not much of a wardrobe, I can tell you that." White gloved hands set at his hips and he turned on Delial instead, looming despite the way he slouched. "And what of you, then? The champion of Hydaelyn herself, and here you are with no one to attend to your laundry. Were it not for that visit to Eulmore, I'd dare say you'd turn the stomach of every sin eater this side of Mt. Gulg."

Despite herself, Delial laughed. "Would that if it were true! That my very presence might turn them away, send them crawling back into the Flood."

"It doesn't suit you," he murmured. She hadn't noticed the small frown that had overtaken him, beating down his cheerfully menacing charisma with a note of something sullen. It was to be but a brief reprieve as, with a single slow blink of his pale gold eyes, a dry smirk washed all else away. "You know, you ought to be careful, hero. Whatever will they think of you, chumming it up with me?"

He did not give her a moment to respond before he turned, abruptly, throwing a careless wave farewell over his shoulder and vanishing into a swirl of shadow.


	4. A hue that distinctive...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Falling back into the old rhythm was an easy thing.

Falling back into the old rhythm was an easy thing. They moved from town to town, from people to people, and everywhere they went the ever blazing sky was torn away to reveal the long absent night. Gorging herself upon Lightwarden aether almost felt obscene but Delial did so with little complaint. Her apparent exhaustion after every excursion was just that, of course, and nothing adverse. If she was Hydaelyn's chosen then it stood to reason that she could stand strong against the light.

So when Y'shtola resumed regarding her with her typical grim scrutiny, Delial thought little of it. And when Delial requested they take an extra sun to recuperate before returning to the Crystarium, the others were eager enough to indulge her. Only Emet-Selch seemed put off, but such was his way when he wasn't lecturing or chastising anyone. Surely he was growing bored of them.

Feeling restless, Delial had excused herself from Slitherbough and found herself wandering back into Yx'Maja. The sheer scale of the trees there made the Black Shroud seem quaint in comparison, and the beasts she'd seen were far more deadly. It was with wary steps that she felt drawn towards a massive tangle of roots, one of many that coiled skyward, thick as trees themselves. Power yet remained here, that much she knew: the Flood of Light had ruined most of the world but even she could feel the thrum of life beneath her feet. What she couldn't do, however, was what the Ascian had made seem so simple.

_Shall I fetch her for you?_

To have the power to make so impossible an act look like child's play seemed an appropriate note to add to the steadily growing list of surprises regarding him. Emet-Selch almost seemed surprised that no one else had considered such a course of action, and she was among them all, slack-jawed and incredulous when he plucked Y'shtola from the Lifestream with nothing more but a moment's concentration and a snap of his fingers.

She stared at the gargantuan root before her, fists clenched, willing anything to reveal themselves to her. A burning heat rose in her heart so abrupt she could not tell if it was indeed her own jealousy or the light she'd claimed. So many years of her youth had been put on hold when the Empire came, and all the lessons she was meant to learn as a girl she'd had to scavenge and cobble together decades later. That she could even wield such magic at all was miraculous, but she could feel the toll of every spell and every mistake sapped her further still. 

Yet, they called her hero. Yet, they called her their champion.

_What color was her soul again...?_

Lights swam in her vision and a hot, coppery taste met her tongue.

"If you want to learn, you need only ask."

Delial spun around to find Emet-Selch hovering nearby, arms crossed and a sour expression on his face. He remained unmoving while her sight continued to spin without her, leaving Delial to waver and wobble unsteadily upon her feet. No doubt he was less than impressed by such a display of weakness. To any other, Delial would have remained uncaring, yet there was a sting to his gaze she couldn't so easily ignore.

"It would do you little good to die here, hero," he added as Delial collected herself again. "'Eaten by a beast while pissing off in the woods' is hardly a fitting end to your story."

She ignored that. "You could teach me?"

"No." Emet-Selch's response was abrupt and brusque and he bristled at having said it. "I'm afraid it's as your walking encyclopedia of a friend said: a task beyond the reach of mortals. Regardless, I’ve been waiting for you. Usually by now, you'd have come intruding on my time to ask me your twenty questions."

The vertigo still toyed with her sense of balance so Delial leaned back against the root for some semblance of support. "So you have come to me instead. That is most charitable of you, but I am afraid I've not a mind for questions this eve."

"Liar."

She grinned at that. Slowly, surely, her limbs and body felt whole again and the ground beneath her still and steady. A chanced look revealed that he, too, was grinning. "Very well. Might I hazard one question, then, if you are yet feeling charitable...?"

Emet-Selch heaved his shoulders to sigh and punctuated his act with a helpless shrug. "Who am I to deny the Bringer of Darkness? Ask away."

"What color _was_ her soul?"

It was the second time Delial saw him surprised. Then, just as swiftly, he donned a half-hearted smirk and shook his head. "It would be cruel," he said, "To tell you of a color you can't ever hope to see."


	5. Wouldn't you wish for the same?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She had a mind to raise a complaint about haunted quarters if only for the principle of it.

She had a mind to raise a complaint about haunted quarters if only for the principle of it. Nothing would come of such a petty act, of course, and surely no one would believe her. In a world swallowed by the absolute rule of Light, who had time to worry after ghosts? So too had she put it to him, this young-faced spectre who saw fit to visit her in her private moments, but he had not been very amused. 

"Here you've come to offer your piece, too, I wager," she said to her not entirely unexpected visitor. The food in the Crystarium was, at least, decent. The first time the Exarch had come to check up on her, he'd brought a gift of a sandwich and by the way he insisted and lingered and fidgeted to hear her thoughts on it, she was certain he'd fixed it himself. Surely he had better things to worry after considering practically everything about the First, but it amused her to think he fretted and suffered to please her over something so mundane as the salad she picked at that evening after he'd pulled her and hers through time and space without so much as a moment to consider such a thing as consent.

"Aye, I would." Of Ardbert, she had less entertaining thoughts. He always seemed to intrude when her moods were the least accommodating to his presence, but she could not deny that she admired his candor, grating as it struck her at times. “You’ll not like what I have to say.”

"Would that I could excise you, then. Alas, of all the gifts Hydaelyn has seen fit to inflict upon me, I can hardly do a thing," she sighed, raising her fork to point at the phantom standing opposite her seat, "About you. Out with it, then."

Ardbert was uncomfortably expressive for a shade. Handsome, too, in a way: were she a much younger woman she might have thought more fondly of him by the fairness of his face alone. Were she more forgiving, she might have let go of how he'd tried to strike her down. There in the First she felt very little of either, and her quickly thinning patience was reflected perfectly in his ghostly features. "All that rot about Zodiark and Hydaelyn and Primals... Of splintered souls. I get the distinct feeling that you're buying in to it. Seems your friends might be of the same mind as well."

"’Tis strange, that. Mayhap I do not know these companions of mine near as well as you," Delial snorted, "But I should think they are considering the possibility of his words, and rightly so considering all that we know thus far. I trust in them to draw what conclusions they may." She straightened in her seat and frowned miserably at the meal that had ceased to appetizing. "Do you come to me now because I do not deny him outright? If you think me under his sway, then spare us both and say it plain."

"All I am saying," Ardbert grumbled with measured patience, "Is that I think you forget that this is a game to them. Meddling with people - meddling with _us_."

"So I should not trust in the Ascian."

Ardbert scowled and were he able to, Delial imagined he would have liked to slam his fists upon the table. He settled for a hard and dangerous stare instead, and in his eyes she thought she saw something of Thancred. "No! Of course not! Why would y--"

"Imagine, then, the trouble you might have saved us all had you come to think of this yourself."

He did not visit her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ardbert, please forgive me.


	6. We share a wonderful dream.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On rare occasions, a peculiar thought occurs in Delial's mind: Perhaps I misjudged.

On rare occasions, a peculiar thought occurs in Delial's mind: _Perhaps I misjudged_. There was precious little that she understood completely about the course her life had taken, and much less of the once unbelievable events and circumstances that had carved out her fate. She thought little of the girl who was yet growing into Minfilia's name, though arguably she had thought very little of any of them at the start.

Now, she wondered.

The girl gave her Warrior of Light -- no, she was Darkness now, was she? -- a wide berth, likely at her guardian's suggestion, but it was all too often that Delial would catch a glimpse of unearthly blue eyes cast her way. There was no malice in the girl for the hardships she'd been through, and initially Delial had gone and assumed there wasn't much else in her at all. It may simply have been that she, like Thancred, did not have much of a way with children. It was a miracle that she and the twins were on speaking terms at all. But they understood she was no gentle thing and they expected none of it in turn.

Of Minfilia...

Once, the night before they left for Nabaath Areng, Delial caught her on the catwalks above the gardens and the amaro stables. Thancred had skulked off to wherever he hid when his emotions were being discussed, and Minfilia too had slunk away to hide her distress. But it was an easy thing to follow the girl, who did not seem to worry much at all about such things despite being one who had been taken captive a few too many times in her life. Only when she recognized who it was who had followed her up did she relax, but only just. Her eyes were wide with terror, deep with guilt. "I'm sorry, I--"

"He does not mean it, you know." A hand pressed upon her bone-thin shoulder nearly sent Minfilia jumping out of her skin. It was enough to send the girl into tears right then and there, and in her shame she babbled apologies and rushed away, pawing at her eyes.

Delial did not understand what it was that happened in that light-flooded place. The woman who was Minfilia, the girl who was to be Minfilia, the choices that lay before them both: such burdens were beyond even the Warrior of Darkness. But when they embraced, and when the voices faded, and when at last the light pulled away and returned them to the ruin, Delial understood enough to know that she was different beyond the softening of her eyes and the darkening of her hair. _Ryne_, he called her, trying too hard to not sound hopeful, quickly averting his eyes to seem aloof even then. _Blessing. I'm glad you're here._

Later, when Thancred was nearly steady enough to walk again, Ryne found herself beset upon by Delial once more. Another hand was set upon her shoulder, another squeeze, gentler this time. Ryne could not help but be sheepish but she smiled, giddy and a bit overwhelmed. She smiled, and even Delial could not help but believe.


	7. Never mind.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There were plans to be made for Eulmore but they did not need her presence for them.

There were plans to be made for Eulmore but they did not need her presence for them. She was in poor shape to contribute, besides: since the mines, it had been that much harder to focus. Sleep had become all but an impossibility. She could not describe it, the way the light slid and swam behind her lids, a borealis that stained everything through and through. Even her hands seemed more star than flesh, interrupted only by the dark silver band around one finger. Her mind was occupied besides, and her heart was tugged back into Rak'tika. The Viis, if they were tracking her trespass, did not reveal themselves to her. Not even the automatons, such strange configurations of stone and magick, did little to impede her way back into the Qitana Ravel.

A voice inside her balked at the thought that she might take comfort in being in such a place: damp and relatively dark, stinking of moss and loam and the faint reek of dead magick. It was a far cry from Ala Mhigo, to be certain, and she would find no material comforts there. Her feet made small, padded sounds as she paced in slow, strained circles. Only the steady dripping of water provided her company. That, and her thoughts.

The murals itched in her memories. Y'shtola's analysis seemed to make sense enough, but it was not enough for whatever madness it was that grew inside Delial. Zodiark, Hydaelyn, there had to be more, even more than what her star-smeared vision could parse from those aged murals. Emet-Selch's words loomed in her thoughts, monumental in a way she could not explain. They remained as yet another source of frustration, a pool of knowledge so vast and dark she could do little but stare down and wonder at just how deep she could go before it drowned her.

She scarcely noticed his arrival. He said nothing at first; the Ascian, too, seemed prone to moods and had grown reticent more often than not. She recognized the cycles in herself: that for all his theatrics, it was merely that, a show to keep his little heroes on track, to keep them on edge, to keep them suspicious but all too intrigued. _Typical of him_, she thought with such casual dismissal that it nearly shocked herself. When had she become so familiar with him?

Indifferent to her want for solitude, Emet-Selch paced into place beside him, with hands folded at the small of his back. "I take it you have actually given thought to what I've said."

"I know what you are doing," she said.

"Is that so." He sounded bored looking up at the murals, stooped just enough to give him the shape of a man far too old for his skin, his flesh, his bones. "Yes, I suppose you might. Humor me, then. What is it you see?"

Delial could not bring herself to look at him. The image of a city drowning in fire rippled, animated vibrantly through the light in her eye. "You have no reason to lie, so you do not. The truths you feed us are but crumbs of something greater. It would change nothing, in the end. We will see it or we will not. They will not trust you one way or another."

"Hm. And what of you, hero? Are you not a part of them?"

"What a stupid question." That got her a glance out of the corner of his eye. She wondered if the twitch of his lip was annoyance or if he, too, saw how dangerously she shone. "I am convenient and I am tolerated. What a dreadful hero I must be. Not at all what they wanted."

"And yet you serve."

Delial grinned. "And yet I serve."

"You did not quite answer me," Emet-Selch chided, cocking his head just enough to regard her with a single golden eye. "I know, I know, how very rich coming from me. What of you? Do _you_ trust me?"

The mantle of Warrior of Light was a heavy one. She did not say it much if at all but she was truly grateful for the Scions, as much as she grated on them and they grated on her. The matter of trust was an ever delicate balance of nerve and determination and there were times where they left one another wanting. In the end, they yet supported her in their way. From Primal to Imperial, they guided her hand, for in the end she was by some inexplicable blessing the strongest among them. Champion of Hydaelyn, Blessed of her Light. _The eldest and most powerful of Primals._

Twinned gods mirrored one another overhead, painted black and white. Was it ever so simple as that? Had they been doomed to hate from the start?

"No," Delial whispered. He waited, as if anticipating her hesitation. When had he become so familiar with her? "But I wonder now if it is because I see myself in the things you do, or if it because Hydaelyn loathes you through me."

In another image, Hydaelyn loomed over a fallen Zodiark, the Light besting Dark by tearing its very existence apart. Delial did not notice her vision abruptly growing cloudy or the shaking in her limbs, so stricken was she by a terror that left her heart frozen in her chest. The pieces of her youth were scattered, fragmented, stitched together by Imperial design that she had embraced wholeheartedly, knowing nothing else. It had taken nearly the entirety of her life to shake off the things she knew, to see her country for what it had become, so much so that she could not so much as stand within Ala Mhigo's walls without feeling sick with shame. She bore it all, silent in the wings of Lyse leading the people in song, but she did so thinking it was by her own choice. To consider it and all that had come before it anything but...

Emet-Selch confessed it so plainly. It was a matter of course to be tempered by a god of his own making.

"It cannot be helped," she heard him say. It was all too much, these enormous things the Ascian lead her towards. Her cheeks burned where tears had fallen and Delial swiped at her eyes with her thumbs, foregoing any attempt at subtlety, desperate to reach for the familiar comforts of anger to pull her out of her shame. If Emet-Selch would judge her for that, too, as he had for so many other things, then she would let him have her weakness. To his credit he made no move, and when her eye was clear enough to catch a glimpse of him, he was looking away to the same portrait of Zodiark's fall.

"What do you want from me?"

"The same as anyone else, I wager."

It would have taken everything and more to bend and wrench herself back under control, to try and mold herself back into collected creature she was made to be. He had withdrawn again, sunk deeper into the well, far beyond her reach. It felt petty and infuriating that a man so ancient and powerful as he could behave as such. To make things worse, Delial could not tell exactly why it angered her so. "Tell me plain," she snarled, flinching from the rise in her own voice. "What am I to do with any of this?"

He did not look at her but his head tilted down as his eyes dropped near the cavern floor. She full well expected him to vanish as he often did, slipping away into the dark with a snap of his fingers. He did not. Instead he said, with a calm that only incensed her further, "Survive."

Delial did not realize she had moved until he was boring down at her again, with his lip curled into a snarl of his own. She had dared intrude upon him, to grasp at an arm she did not even know she could touch, to force him to look down at her. She wondered if it burned him to be so near, to be faced with a vessel so overflowing with light she was moments from ruin. "And will I? Can I?" Fury tore through her, burning up every thing she'd kept in check, mere kindling to a fire that could not hope to last for much longer. "They all dance around it! Around _me_! I want-- I need to know the truth. You know it as well as I do, don't you?"

There was nothing kind about Emet-Selch and he did not deign to pretend otherwise. Even retrieving Y'shtola from the Lifestream was but a transaction, albeit one given in good faith. There was no kindness in his eyes, narrowed and calculating. It was foolish to think she might garner understanding from an Ascian, from an ancient thing moved only by the whims of his broken god. She could not allow herself to think the pained grimace that bared his teeth as anything but annoyance. "It depends upon you, _hero_," he spat in measured, sullen tones. Then, abruptly, he was gone. Her hand gripped nothing, her stare met Hydaelyn's, her caricature on the stone.

"And for what little it may be worth," came Emet-Selch's voice from behind her. "I pray that you do. It is what you do best, is it not?"

And then she was alone.


	8. They will quickly know despair.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every heartbeat breaks her.

Every heartbeat breaks her.

Vauthry, the avatar he had become, is no more. His host of sin eaters, dispersed. The Light...

It breaks her. Breaks her. Breaks her.

The rest of the Scions gather but not too close, lest they too be tainted. The Exarch as well - he babbles, he smirks. There is yet more light, a mote of relief.

A gunshot.

_Him_.

The world falls into silence. She can no longer hear her own gasps, her groans, her screams. In her breast her heart thuds violently, and she can swear she can feel every artery, every vein, every capillary swell near to bursting. But even that, too, sounds muted by the sheer weight of the Ascian's presence.

He kneels before her, face creased with a frown. His eyes speak volumes. These moments are agony dressed in blinding white, but she cannot look away from the gold of his eyes.

Emet-Selch speaks.

"How very disappointing."

She is dying, burning alive, twisting from the inside, and yet this is what enrages her. Her face is wet with tears, with blood, with vomit, she does not know. It breaks her, and he scowls.

"You are turning, even now. And here I thought... here I'd _hoped_." The click of his tongue sounds as loud as gunfire and as his eyes roll away, they cut through her. She knows this look, she's seen it before, but he's an Emperor long dead and she's nothing but a failure now, a corpse long overdue. The stink of aether coils at the back of her throat and she cannot tell if it is her own or if it is theirs, cloying and sickly sweet. 

"Never mind. It doesn't matter. Soon, you'll turn, and you'll turn on them, and they'll either put you down or you'll suck the aether from their bones." He pauses to tap a single gloved finger against his lips, looking down the arch of his nose. "I wonder what they will call you. Lightwarden Delial? One name is as good as any, I suppose. You wouldn't remember, anyway."

Again, with this. She writhes and claws at the ground but it is too slick for her trembling hands. How dare he have the nerve to be angry at her. How dare he taunt her, mock her like this. Who is he? _Who is he?_

_Who am I?_

"I pity you. Truly, I do. But this is not the end, not yet," he sighs. He pushes up off his knees and bounces up to his (almost) full height, and sneers down at her. "I'm afraid it will only get worse for you. When it does become too much, seek me out. The Tempest shall grant you some dignity, away from prying eyes. I feel you are owed that much, at least."

Something in her snaps. The ground meets her face. The black leather of his boots, the white trim of his robe, they turn and walk away into a spot of darkness. Then he is gone again, and around her there is shouting, screaming.

It breaks her. It breaks her. She breaks.


	9. Eater.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A soft hand upon hers was the first thing she noticed.

A soft hand upon hers was the first thing she noticed. Every nerve in her body felt numb and burnt out, but by some grace of the gods she could feel the gentle rub of a thumb against hers. When at last she found the strength to open her eyes, she thought she caught a streak of white hair.

It was Ryne. A chair had been pulled up beside her bed in the chambers offered to her, and Ryne slumped half asleep, a book on her lap and a hand upon Delial's.

She groaned.

"Mmm." The girl stirred, rubbed at her eyes with her palm, and straightened. She looked distraught. "Oh! You're awake! That's... That's wonderful. How are you...?"

Delial licked at her lips with a tongue that felt dry as sand. Her mouth tasted sour and sweet. The mere act of opening her eyes was too much. To speak was unthinkable.

"Do you remember...? No, never mind. Here, I'll... Let me get you some water. I should let them know you're awake. After the water." Ryne leaned in and made an attempt to squeeze her hand. It was weak at best, but Delial was in no shape to complain. A small comfort at least. One small thing to remind her she yet lived.

_And who am I?_

Ryne's face left her field of vision and shortly after she could hear the clattering of cabinets being searched. "You gave us all quite a scare, honestly. I did what I could, and you... Well, you were... hurt." Her voice paused for the sound of pouring water, and soon she was back at Delial's side, wavering between trying to help her up and trying to decide if that was even a good idea. 

"Where is he?" Delial's voice sounded choked to her own ears, and to hear it seemed to worry Ryne even more.

"Gone. Taken away, with Emet-Selch." It wasn't who Delial meant. Ryne continued, oblivious to Delial's discontent. "We haven't been able to... that is, we aren't exactly sure..."

Alarm stiffened Ryne's spine as Delial groaned and coughed and, with far more effort than seemed immediately worthwhile, pushed herself somewhat upright onto her elbows. It took a few moments of staring before, with a startled 'oh!', Ryne brought the little mug of water up to Delial's lips. Even that tasted off, sullied somehow, but she gulped down what she could and coughed when she could drink no more. Nothing but spittle fell from her mouth; no stains of iridescence, at least not yet. The thudding of her heart felt calmer now but it still burned at the very edges of her being.

"You wouldn't happen to remember what he said to you?" Ryne ventured. When Delial met her stare wordless for many moments, she pressed further. "Emet-Selch spoke to you, didn't he? We couldn't make any of it out, but it looked as if... Do you remember? Anything at all?"

_Not that you'd remember._

"Help me up, dear. Please."

Ryne quickly set aside the mug and swooped in to offer Delial an arm. She heaved her legs out of bed and promptly slumped, elbows on her thighs, overcome with a bout of dizziness as her eyes fell to the floor. But Ryne remained there, a small hand at her back and an arm under hers, determined to help despite looking so helpless. Delial didn't deserve her compassion.

_I pity you._

"I... do not," she said. "I don't remember. It was all too much." It wasn't a lie. She stared at the tile beneath her feet, watched it warp and spin. She would be lucky if she didn't empty her stomach. Swallowing thickly, she added, "I see I'm... I've not perished. You said you...?"

"It was the least I could do," Ryne confessed. From the corner of her eye, Delial watched her lips part and close again, pull into a frown she tried valiantly to fight away. "There's so much of it in you now. She-- we spoke of cracks, before, cracks in your soul. They're worse, now. But we managed to bind you back together, sort of. Much more and you'll burst for sure." Nervously, she laughed, her blue eyes skirting away to a corner of the room. "Sorry. A bad choice of words."

"It's fine, sweetling, truly. Thank you." Ilm by ilm, Delial straightened or tried to, all under the watchful eye of the girl beside her. "T'would be a lie to say I feel hale and whole, but I suppose it beats being dead. Or worse." She put on a smile, weak as it was, and this seemed to bring Ryne a measure of comfort. "You are a stronger thing than you give yourself credit for, to pull me back from..."

Embarrassed and perhaps a little shamed, Ryne simply shook her head. "It was the least I could do," she insisted. "I wish I could do more."

"Never mind that. The others, are they...?"

"Safe. Worried, but safe. Coming back down the mountain was a bit, uhm... tricky. But we managed. You wouldn't think it," said Ryne, allowing herself another brief smile, "But Urianger is a lot stronger than he looks. Practically carried you all the way down. Not that you heard that from me," she tittered, nervous as a bird. Delial could not muster the energy to laugh, so she joined her in smirking at the thought of bare-armed Urianger delicately carrying her unconscious form all the way back down to earth. Someday, she might ask him about it.

Ryne quickly sobered and pulled away from Delial, standing full of anxious energy. "I was actually supposed to let them know when you woke. I should-- I can go get them, if you want. I think it would be better if they came to you."

_They always do._ The thought crashed through her sharp and bitter, catching Delial off guard. She smiled in spite of it. "I would like that. I suspect we've much to talk about. But if you could give me a... little while, at least. A bell, perhaps? Just some time to... acclimate." With her hands bracing the edge of the bed, she struggled to push herself even further upright with some mixed success. Ryne, sympathetic, bobbed her pretty little head.

"Of course. I'll excuse myself then. Is there anything else I can do for you before I go?"

"The window?" By habit she'd kept it open, letting the sky be a reminder of a hope she did not quite feel. But they were shuttered, and Delial took note of Ryne's hesitance. "'Tis fine, dear. The breeze would do me good, I think."

"You won't like what you see," murmured Ryne.

"'Tis fine. I… can feel it. As I suspect you can, too. But I would know it for myself."

Ryne could not say no. Resigned, she slumped to the window and without celebration pushed open the shutters. Gone was the soft blue that was Lakeland's sky reborn: nothing but light, pervasive and absolute. It poured in and gave the wood floor a wan and jaundiced sheen. Ryne was quick to turn away from it, plainly troubled, and with another murmured goodbye she excused herself from the room.

Every breath Delial still tickled at the back of her throat with a burning ache. It must be what a dragon feels like, she mused, though she could find no humor in it now. Perhaps were she a girl again, she might have found it novel. Perhaps if she were a girl again, she would remember...

_... Remember what?_

Her legs creaked as she strained to stand, shaking like a fawn. Just as with anything else, she would endure this. She focused on breathing, and on balance, and on what remained of her willpower. So much had been endured thus far; what, then, was a little more?

Then she focused on something else, reaching out beyond her window and beyond the walls of the Crystarium. They would be listening, she was certain, mad with a devotion Delial could not understand.

"O, Feo Ul, my sweet and beautiful branch," she said, a few heartbeats after she was certain Ryne had gone. "I've a terrible favor to ask of you."


	10. The whole world holds its breath.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not once in her life had she spared a moment to wonder what it would be like at the bottom of an ocean, yet there she stood.

Not once in her life had she spared a moment to wonder what it would be like at the bottom of an ocean, yet there she stood. Everything in her still ached but it felt more akin to smoldering there, with a blanket of pitch black sea between herself and the light-polluted sky. Were it not for the questions burning holes in her mind, she might have confessed that she felt more at peace. It would not be a terrible place to die, all things considered.

She found the ruins and she found the fish-men that grovelled in them, startled by the enormous bubble they suddenly found themselves in. Though they grumbled, they were a gentler kind than she'd come to know on the Source, their piety paid to the mysterious Ancients that had by providence saved them from the Flood. It took little work to convince them she came as their emissary. So they bade her go west, far to the west, where they claimed strange lights lay waiting: the light of Ancients awoken into the gloom of the abyss. It could only be him.

The descent was slow and arduous and fraught with the creatures of the deep, deep sea. They seemed to avoid her more often than not, and Delial took some amusement in thinking they saw her poisoned flesh and feared. If someone were to follow her, perhaps they might notice the breadcrumb trail of charred carcasses. Perhaps they would even think it a warning. Knowing the Scions, they would be scrambling soon enough: anything to recover their vaunted hero, their weapon of light.

Delial knew not what she expected when she passed the final twist of the cavern and broke back out into the open sea. It whispered with magic but no magic she knew, in no shape she could comprehend. Spires and towers of impossible heights covered this abyssal horizon, near every surface of them covered in hundreds or thousands of lights in perfect alignment and symmetry, dimly glowing. Scattered throughout were structures like enormous, curved shapes wrought of some metal perhaps, coiling skyward like narrow leaves. It had to be a city, it could be nothing but, but on so grand a scale that even Ala Mhigo seemed but a playground in comparison.

Her first steps were tentative, her heart aching with a newfound sense of deep unease. Only when she braved approaching the nearest tower did she realize just how massive everything was: a set of doors loomed above her, almost absurd in their magnitude, more akin to the city gates of Ul'dah. The windows, too - she realized then they were windows and not just lights - were enormous and empty, barren of any hint of any one lingering behind them. It seemed her trespass was to be unnoticed, at least until she gathered the nerve to approach the door. _Welcome home_, its pleasant voice chimed in a language she did not know. It made no difference: she understood it all the same, and it too understood her when she accepted its offer to take her to the ground floor.

Alone, she descended. When the lift slowed to a gentle stop and the doors swept open, it became apparent that she would not remain alone.

They moved as ghosts, sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs or small, clustered groups. Giants, humanoids, slumped in a way that was now keenly familiar, they paid little mind to Delial as she intruded further into their lost city. Their monochrome robes swayed soundlessly around their steps. Their faces, or the vague impressions there-of, were hooded and further obscured by simple beaked masks. _Ascians_. The realization only further deepened her dread, turning her gut into a knot. Ascians, or a strange mockery of them. She could not imagine the likes of Lahabrea living among these seemingly gentle entities, with his horned pauldrons and his clawed gloves and the fanged crimson mask he favored. What, then, of Emet-Selch?

Her first few steps further into the square were clumsy. The roads were paved in broad squares of ridged stone, all arranged in elegant patterns that should have been completely impractical for her to traverse. Yet where her feet should have slipped between the ridges, they found solid nothing instead, courtesy of some magicked nature she could not discern. She stumbled while trying to force her brain to ignore this discrepancy. The entity she approached, settled upon an enormous bench beneath a tree with deep violet leaves, did not seem to notice. Their face was upturned, perhaps in contemplation of the lights of a nearby tower.

"Can you hear me?" Delial asked. She could only assume these Ascians were built as she and the others she had encountered were, and in doing so she felt an absurd sense of sheepishness threaten to overcome her. Delial was not tall, even for an Ala Mhigan, but she scarcely come close to what she approximated was this being's knee.

The Ascian, shaken from their reverie, glanced around themselves before chancing a look downward. There were no eyes Delial could make out through the mask but it seemed as if their gaze were inclined to wander away from her, turning one way or another before being forced back down. "_**Ah? Hello? Forgive me,**_" they said, "_**I could have sworn... No matter. Are you alone, child? Do you need help?**_"

Delial did her best not to bristle as there were plenty of conflicting emotions already sapping away at her. What was important was that it seemed she could interact with them somehow. "Tell me where I am."

The masked face tilted owlishly, put off perhaps by this child's brusque nature. "_**Are you... lost, then? Ah, or new to the city? That must be it. You've come at a most inauspicious time, I must admit. But I get ahead of myself.**_" They swept one draped arm upwards, gesturing vaguely at the square. "_**This is, of course, Amaurot.**_"

_Not that you'd remember any of this._ A jolt of fear coursed through her heart. _Amaurot, dear Amaurot, fairly she gleamed..._

"Then he is here," Delial pressed. "Emet-Selch is here."

"_**But of course,**_" the spectre said, matter-of-fact. Their great grey hand paused near their chin, regarding Delial thoughtfully. "_**He and the rest of the Convocation, they work for the salvation of our star as we approach... Hm. Forgive me, as I am but a stranger, but... should you not be with your family? I'm sure they worry.**_"

Delial was uncertain if she could mask the urgency in her voice even if she wanted. "I need to find him. Tell me where he is."

"_**An audience at this time will be next to impossible.**_" Again their gaze drifted, pulled skyward ilm by ilm. "_**You should hurry back, little one. Do take care for me, won't you? You are yet so young.**_" And then they faded before her eyes, the soft greys and whites that gave the impression of form drifting away like smoke on the wind.

Delial turned and craned her gaze upwards, attempting to follow where the Ascian was staring. Even from the top of the cliffs, the city reached incredibly high, sprawled out as far as she could see. But from at their feet they seemed simply impossible: monuments of stone and glass and the heady scent of magic. For a moment, Delial wished Y'shtola were there. Soon, she was certain, they'd catch her trail, if they hadn't already. She had to be swift if she was to act at all.

Peeking out from beneath the rise of a line of buildings was one that gleamed brighter than the rest, a shape that stood out not only for the crystalline blue glass that seemed much more decorative than practical but for its cylindrical shape amongst the mountains that were its blocky, rectangular siblings. It commanded respect and admiration, whatever it was, and she felt it echoed in her, clear as a bell. 

That was where she must go. 

That is where he would be.

That was where she would find her answer.


	11. He who denies the Light.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amaurot, utopia.

Amaurot, utopia. The figures she passed chattered among themselves of all the wonders of the city, of their most recent creations and of the tireless efforts of their Convocation. Delial quickly realized there, too, was an undercurrent of doubt and fear among those ghosts, for now and again she would also catch murmurings, always hushed, about their Final Days. Everyone upon the first was running short of time and these people and their city, so very long dead and gone, were captured echoing the moments before calamity. Emet-Selch had grown more open to speaking of his people and of the ill-fate that befell them at the hands of Hydaelyn. At first she thought he was just being nostalgic, for it was in pursuit of righting this wrong that he and his peers sought their Rejoining across the shards. Then one day, the day the great Talos rose to snatch a mountain from the sky, he pinned her with such a melancholic look she thought she'd been speaking with someone else entirely. "Not that you would remember any of this," he said, so forlorn and out of the blue that it left Delial stunned and wordless.

She didn't understand. She still didn't, though the pieces were right there before her. Amaurot terrified her, more so than the prospect of becoming yet another sin eater. She could brace herself against inevitability, but not against an inevitability that had already happened without her knowing.

The city gleamed regardless, a mass grave given one last chance to remember. _Remember. Not that you'd remember._

Delial found him upon the steps leading up to whatever building it was that had become her guiding star. The Capitol, presumably, by the way it stood grand and self-important even in a city full of grand buildings. He sat with elbows upon his knees, head bowed and with the white of his gloves knitted together as if in prayer. She wasn't certain why it had become so easy to forget he had been the Emperor of Garlemald: perhaps it was his slouched and decidedly un-Garlean posture, or the ease and delight with which he'd teased and prodded her companions. Sitting there, he was no one but Emet-Selch, and he was nothing but so desperately tired.

"You're a little early," he said, drawling as if awoken from a nap. A single eye opened to stare up at her but he remained motionless otherwise. "And you're alone. Fancy that. Though I cannot say I am at all surprised. Did they abandon you already?"

Just as the stares of the Amaurotines slid past her, so too did hers slide past him, drawn up to stare at the Capitol. She was there, at the bottom of the sea, at the end of her life, at the end of two worlds, and the fury that had driven her there had frozen solid in her veins. She said, "I expect they will come to collect me soon enough."

"And in the meantime?"

"I don't know." She paused, resisting the urge to wring her hands. Emet-Selch watched her as she watched anything else but him. "May I sit?"

"If you wish."

She sat. It was by some mercy that her legs did not dangle uselessly off the edge of the step to further taunt her and her apparently child-like size. The toes of her boots rested on the next step down, albeit just barely. Delial was grateful for the rest all the same. It had taken some walking to navigate that part of the city and while she was not exactly winded, she was still exhausted and sore, more so than usual on account of the light still raging inside of her. Conveniently, she had placed her bad eye between them. How pitiful that a man eons old was in better shape than she. Even with her blinded side towards him, however, she could feel the weight of his stare. If he intended to break the silence, he chose instead not to. Waiting, apparently, as if she'd never arrived at all.

When her breath had settled down, Delial chose to speak in his stead. "T'was always an ill fit for me, I think. Such is the danger of making oneself so indispensable. They know not what to do without you. And I suppose in some way I was dependent upon them as well. I did not have the luxury of getting to feel very important before the Scions found me. But once they started throwing that accursed word around..."

"Warrior?"

"_Hero._"

Emet-Selch chuckled a single curt note but said nothing. She continued, taking what catharsis she could from speaking to an Ascian.

"I thought I was something of the sort when I was a child. I thought I was serving my country, in serving yours. I wonder if this is my reward, then? To sit beside the great Solus Zos Galvus while I await the end."

"Officially putting down your hypothetical sword, then, are you?"

"Maybe." She folded her hands, then unfolded them, turning her palms up. Even after whatever it was Ryne did to temper it, the light still gleamed through the black of her gloves. "I could fight you, I suppose, but to what end? Assuming I could even defeat you, then what? The light remains in me, destroys me in the end, destroys this world, and I imagine the Rejoining continues regardless. Am I wrong?"

"No."

"Then I suppose that," she said, "Is that. Unless you happen to know of a way to spare me from this?"

"It is as I said before," he sighed. "I had placed all my hope in you."

"For all the good it did you." Once more she felt his gaze settled on her and she turned her head to meet it. "Of all the fools you could have believed in, why me? If I was doomed to disappoint you, then why?"

"Because you are the only one in all that remains that could." His words were heavy with a sincerity she had scarcely felt from anyone, and it was the way he smiled, just a tick at the corner of his mouth, that tore at her heart in a way no amount of light could match.

"Who am I?" She demanded it quietly, and with an urgency that raised his brows. "All this, all these things you've said and done... If they are meant to make me remember, then help me."

"It will not end well for you," he warned.

Delial nearly spat. She sneered, "It was never going to end well for me."

His voice grew grave. "There are no happy endings here."

"You have brought me all this way. _Please._"

Emet-Selch was still and he was silent and she could see the shape of his thoughts being weighted and calculated in his eyes. When she was all but certain he would deny her, that he would take his leave again, his shoulders slumped even further than they typically did and he regarded her with an annoyance lightened only by a very, very faint touch of resignation. "Very well. I warned you. Let it not be said that I am a man wholly without mercy," he lamented, flipping back on whatever switch controlled his want for theatrics. He stood up soundlessly - not so much as a creak of bone or the groan of a man too old to move so swiftly - and took a moment to straighten his lapel, his sleeves, his absurd metal adornments. Only when he was satisfied with himself did he, to Delial's surprise, angle his stare down at her and offered a single gloved hand.

"Come along, then, hero," he said. "It seems we've an appointment to keep after all."

She did not hesitate. She placed her hand in his and his fingers were upon hers like a vice. The world around them, serene in the haze of memory and deep ocean mist, was flooded instead by absolute dark. It wound around her, around them, and Amaurot was empty once more.


	12. These vain reflections.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All was still in the deep, deep darkness that arrested her.

All was still in the deep, deep darkness that arrested her. Delial was not unconscious, a realization that took precious time to make. The chill on her skin, the stillness in her chest, the sensation of being suspended in water without water crept back into her senses one by one. That her flesh did not glow for the first time in a dozen suns or more was eerie enough to make her consider the possibility that she was indeed in some manner of dream, but then the dark swept away just a little, like great wings peeling back in preparation of flight, and ugly veins of unearthly light crept beneath her skin once more.

It was a vast and grey place and she was alone. No, not alone, never alone. The Ascian's presence was unmistakable, the shadow that grounded her in the lightless gulf of nothing. She imagined, for a moment, that his silence was a courtesy: that he was letting her acclimate whatever trial it was meant to be. It was many moments more before he spoke.

"Focus."

His voice echoed off nothing and into nothing, and he sounded both near and distant. "Not even I can teach you what you already know. Focus. It has always existed in you, even if you've so shamefully forgotten. All it takes is but a nudge." He continued, disembodied and stern. "I have told you my story. Tell me of yours. Let us see who you are."

"But I--"

"Focus. Your Mother crystal has given you such commands before, as she not? Hear... Think... Feel." The contempt in his voice was palpable, and Delial imagined it took a great deal of will to keep his tone cool. Even so, it became edged and taciturn. "If it aids you, then do it. If you cannot, then--"

"I will. I will. A moment, please. I..."

_Remember. Remember. Who am I?_

_Who am I?_

She closed her eyes. She took a breath. She reached out for the memories packed away, before they called her hero.

_I am.... I..._

Something whisked past her, slid under her arms like wind. If she thought hard enough, she could almost feel... almost feel...

_... the stone tile floors of home. Warm stone walls the color of faded terracotta. The city outside is grand beyond measure, incomprehensible. I have never been so safe as I was here, all those years ago. I take comfort in the little things that shaped my world. The mosaic in blue and white and gold on the wall on the floor beneath the hearth. The only portrait in the house of us, the five of us, forced together into one gaudy frame._

The suggestion of a query brushed past her then. Her toes touched upon something cool and solid. The grey broke into the warmer palette of her youth. No longer suspended, she found her footing in the center of a room that grew out around her, blooming into the shapes she can remember from a life so far away. It was Emet-Selch's doing, she knew, but there was still a tingle of pride in her heart. The nostalgia grew bolder as she remembered, remembered--

_Down the hall, my father's study with its broad double doors left wide open. Stacked wall to wall with shelves and books and maps and nonsense. It spilled out into the parlor, my mother's domain, infesting the heart of our house with his scholarly obsessions. A pair of antlers, aldgoat maybe, mounted, purchased. Father was not a hunter, but mother loved it so. Said it reminded her of home. That was all the reason he needed. A thick woven rug, sofas that never sat right, left crooked because they would just get bumped out of order anyway. They were ugly things inherited through the passing of an uncle and father would hear no word of replacing them. They smelled of smoke and old wood and feathers. His favorite armchair, too, a hideous leather affair that looked as though it had survived calamities. Maybe it had._

The floor solidified first, and then the walls, and then it arched and curved overhead to seal the ceiling. Shorter than she remembered but she, too, was a shorter thing in those days long gone. Growing bold, she chanced a step, and then another. It did not surprise her to find that her feet were bare and she was no longer wearing the grim black robes that had become her working uniform. In its stead she wore a pale yellow sundress patterned with small embroidered wildflowers. And as the rest of the room filled in, populated by vague shapes that resolved themselves into drapes and books and laundry long forgotten, so too did Emet-Selch, occupying a place behind her father's armchair. He ran a gloved finger over it as if checking for dust. He did not seem impressed. 

"Quaint," he said. The echoing was gone, his voice constrained by this semblance of body, of place.

Her fondness for the scene was nearly dispelled right then and there. Her father would have nearly lost his mind with rage if he had ever played host the eminent Solus Zos Galvus. She wasn't so sure about her mother: at the least, she would be deeply amused to offer him a seat on those hideous green sofas. Arms nested at the small of his back and he stood without his usual slouch, stately and severe, much more akin to the image she was familiar with as a child. Imperious, through and through, though thoroughly indifferent to all he surveyed. 

"And what of it?," Delial said, perhaps a little more defensively than she intended. "I loved it here." All the trappings of home in a darkened room sitting an eternity away, back upon the Source. Not once had she revisited it person, not even after the city had been liberated. Surely it belonged to someone else, abandoned was. It was her own personal Amaurot, empty of the people she loved. There was nothing left for her there.

"I'm sure you did." Emet-Selch prowled, scrutinizing the little things that cluttered the place: a bowl of tarnished silver filled with crumbling potpourri, the heft of a stray book, the fraying corners of her father's armchair. He had the audacity to seat himself, first smoothing out the tail of his coat before plopping down with all the nobility he typically elected to ignore, save but for the shite-eating grin he pointed squarely her way. "Not bad. Not good, but not... terrible. I confess, I prefer my seats a little more gaudy and, shall we say, Imperial. But to each their own."

_An ass is still an ass._ He snickered as if she'd said it aloud. 

"This is where we begin, then. The furthest you can go?"

"What do you mean?"

"Never mind. Who were you, here?" He waggled his fingers, gesturing about the room.

Delial's hands brushed down the front of her dress. It was her favorite when she was little. One size too large, just as she remembered. _Who was I?_ "I am Delial Blackstone. Daughter of Lyra and Garren, sister of Westor and Harvard, and I am a child of Ala Mhigo." 

"And this is before you met your Scions of the Seventh Dawn?"

Delial blinked at him. His hands steepled, fingertips meshing together, and his golden eyes stared through them expectantly. 

"Of course it is. I was-- I was a child. I didn't leave here, until..."

"... Until..."

"Until after the Calamity."

"And before? Who were you then?"

_Smoke and gunfire. They'd become more and more prevalent in the days after the occupation, and would rile up again and again and again. The streets were safe if you complied. If you did not, then perhaps the Kinslayer would find you. There were so many of us then, nameless terrors that struck in the night, we who fought against a divided Ala Mhigo. They made us this way. We were their weapons, and we served proudly. It was for the betterment of our country. It was for the sake of our people. We knew these things. We believed it all._

Something pinched behind Delial's eyes. It did not take her by surprise: a familiar sensation, when she tried to reach back into those earlier years. Some things stood out to her clear as daylight: the marches, the bodies, the razing of the temples, the fall of the Mad King. Others yet remained vague and fuzzy, and it was not until much later in life that she realized that that may have been by design. The Imperials had their ways and Delial had not been so immune to them as she'd been led to believe. She thought herself chosen, favored, stronger than the things that bent her weak-minded countrymen.

"Well?" Emet-Selch's voice was impatient, his gaze much too sharp. She turned away from him to pad towards the window and with a sweep of her arms she drew open the curtains. Outside, the sky was a sea of oranges, reds, violets, and hanging high above it all was the red moon, a smoldering wound yet to inflict itself upon the world. The street before her home was quiet and empty, dark but for the occasional ring of bone white light. Even without the oppressive presence of the moon, many found a simpler and safer option in retreating to their homes once the sun was near enough to setting. Imperial patrols and ruffians, traitors and ne'er-do-wells, often prowled and clashed in the night. Smoke and gunfire, the crackle of magitek energy, the pale yellow searchlights peppered throughout the ward: such was the cost of a better, stronger Ala Mhigo.

"I was an agent," Delial said. "I sought out enemies of the Legatus and of the Empire within the city. _Grimsong._" The name brought about a reflexive smirk. "I called myself Grimsong. I was feared. The resistance knew me and they trembled. And then, one day, they caught me. It was not until much later - until Lyse, and the Griffin, and the rebellion - that I ever dared go back."

Movement drew her eye a little ways down the street. Shadowed figures paced by with their faces low, eyes darkened. Their lips moved but she could not hear them. As they passed nearer, she imagined she recognized the dark plum hair of the shorter figure. Perhaps she even caught their eye when they seemed to take particular interest in her house, staring as they and their companion stalked by. Soon enough they were gone, and the street was still once again. As an imaginary sun slowly set, the sky turned from firey to cool, and the burning red wound that was Dalamud became the lesser blue tomb from which another dragon would rise.

"How curious. Captured by the very rebels you had tormented for so long, and yet you live?"

"I know not how to explain it."

"Naturally." Emet-Selch tapped his fingers together, and rose from his seat. She imagined it was by some courtesy that he made some semblance of moving as a mortal might. In this place, she was certain he could snap his fingers and move mountains if he wished. Instead, he paced and took a place beside her at the window. "I believe I'm more or less familiar with all that rubbish between points B and C. C being here, of course. Or rather, I can take a guess." He cleared his throat and gestured with his hand as he spoke. "By some miracle you encounter the Scions, who somehow manage to recruit you to their cause: to become their Warrior of Light, and fight back against the Garlean and Primal threat. And so on, and so on, a few twists and turns later, you arrive here upon the First. Does that sound about right to you?"

"T'was a bit more involved than that, I assure you," Delial grumbled in response. It was pointless to be annoyed with him: an immortal thing, an Ascian, who expected the impossible and thus was forever disappointed. At times she had foolishly thought he wasn't entirely dismissive of her existence, fractured or not. And then there were times, as he did then, where he looked at her as if she were little more than a stain upon his coat.

"I'm certain it was. How very trying and difficult it must have been for you, hero, you have my greatest sympathies." Emet-Selch turned to her, all the better for him to stare down his nose at her. "You may not trust me, and though it wounds me I can live with it just fine. 'Tis to be my lot in life, ever the shady villain for you small-minded things. You know the feeling, don't you?" A cruel smile, a single chuckle, aimed perfectly to hurt. "Ah, but I distract myself. Let me ask you this, then, since your brain has been so conveniently muddled: do you believe me? That as I am His champion, you, then, are Hers?"

"If we are tempered, then how do we act as we do? As if we yet retain will and thought? I have seen--"

"What you have seen," he cut her off, "Are but pale imitations of a greater art. The principles may be the same, more or less, and we share them as best we can. To their credit, sometimes they come close, but sometimes..." Emet-Selch shook his head, a show of dismay that could not hide the cold twist of his lips. "What we achieved was perfection, and thus it follows that the will of our gods be manifested perfectly in us. Do you think any of this would have been possible were we reduced to mindless, drooling creatures?"

_**The Paragons warned of thine abhorrent kind.**_ The echo of a boiling, raspy voice brought with it the vague shape of a god. Ifrit, or a vague semblance of Ifrit, descended upon the street. A crown of horns aglow, magma-hot, a maw eager to breathe his blessed flame: he stared at her balefully, accusatory. His lean and lanky shape flared bright but not bright enough, and soon enough his limbs and body crumbled like so much ash, leaving his fury to writhe like the smoke of an inferno long starved for kindling.. 

Beside him, a massive shape rumbled to life: Titan, towering above his bestial kin, glowered from beneath a heavy stone brow. **_Godless overdweller! Thy myriad heresies shall not go unpunished!_** He beat his fists together with a great boom of boulders colliding, and in doing so his body cracked and crumbled, the mountain broken before the warrior that was his doom.

Last came the gale, Garuda, a wreath of wings and talons and vicious hunger. Amid the whirl of claw and feather she could see Garuda's maddened stare, the fury born from disbelief. **_What are you? What have you done to me?! No mortal should possess such power!_** The winds stilled around her as she shrieked rage and agony. Feathers wilted and fell away from a single point of light: a crystal, torn from her breast, gleaming like a knife's edge. **_Impossible! Impossible!_**

Their trinity, bested years ago and a world away, collapsed and faded into ash. It was Ifrit's eyes that remained upon her to the last before they too scattered, grey and lifeless. **_Thou art of the godless blessed's number. Thine existence is not to be suffered._**

"And so you trounced all that was set before you, god and man alike. Thus you embraced this mantle of yours: Warrior of Light, the Champion of Hydaelyn. She never even tried to hide it from you, did she? You knew no better. Those around you knew no better." Emet-Selch turned to lean a shoulder against the edge of the window and fixed her with a pitying smile. "All it took was a glimpse of a world consumed by her accursed Light, and even then..."

“I don’t want to talk about Her,” she said. A fresh, new ache clawed at her mind. Even knowing the story between Light and Dark, the casual hatred that simmered beneath Emet-Selch’s words felt appalling, wrong. _Heed not the Dark One’s words._ Was it command or memory that brought Her voice, so long absent, back to light? 

“Ah, but we should!” He sensed her pain, surely he did, and he was ever ready to sink his fangs right in. Emet-Selch rounded in on her, forced himself into her place by the window, set gloved hands upon her shoulders to hold her there. “We _must_. Long have I known of her treachery, but I hadn’t realized the depths of her depravity until now. Oh, now it’s all too clear.” 

Outside, the blue false moon strained and cracked, ready to burst. What emerged, shattering its constraints like glass, was no dragon but instead it was the very image of Her. Hydaelyn’s crystalline avatar loomed over the city, glimmering and pulsating with a light that no longer seemed as calm as serene as She once did. _Warrior of Light_, She seemed to call. _Beloved daughter._

“It was only natural, I suppose: once tempered, forever tempered.” Delial could not tell if it was rage or light that flared up again inside her. His hands could have been a comfort were they not so cold and unfamiliar. Low he bowed himself that he could meet her eyes, that she could not escape his so easily. “But to take everything from you, after all you did in Her name. That is a cruelty even I cannot abide, not even for you.”

_Remember. Remember._ The fury of the light renewed itself, reaffirmed its presence with every beat of her heart. “These riddles again!” Delial wanted to beat it out of him, pummel the grim smug look clear off his face, but she could scarcely even focus on him. Again the light clouded her eyes, drowning out the Ascian and her reconstructed home. Above the city, the crystal glistened brighter and brighter still: an omen, a warning. _From sparkling mote shall I swell to glorious sun..._

“Hear! Think! Feel!” Her mantra was spat at her and Emet-Selch loomed closer still, defiant of the light that tried to blind her. “The empty places in your life, the impressions of people you loved but never knew! All these falsehoods made to shutter your eyes, to deny you your own truth!”

The crystal burned and with it the sky, brightening again in yellows and reds. In the distance, beyond the silence of this false home and the sound of Emet-Selch’s voice, came a steady, rising roar.

_… and all the world shall bask in my warmth._

“Defy her. Defy her and remember. Remember who you are! Remember us! Remember--”

It came upon them, a flood of wretched, angry light. The memory of Ala Mhigo crumbled before it, even the highest walls unable to withstand the crystal’s wrath. The great griffon perched atop the gate, the palace, the menagerie, all fell in an instant, obliterated without a chance to resist. It was upon the street outside in an instant, and then it filled the window with its malice, blinding and deafening and complete in its destruction. Delial felt herself violently jostled, and she was certain that she would be obliterated too, dashed against the walls of a place that did not truly exist.

_Remember us._

She could not hear but for the roaring in her ears. She could not think but for the absence of everything, of self, in the heart of absolute light. She could not feel but for the fire upon her skin.

_Remember._

Time passed. How many moments she could not tell; how many breaths she did not count. She became aware, just as she did when first Emet-Selch brought her into that grey oblivion, of numbness in her limbs and a new pain in her heart. When she opened her eyes, the light was gone but for motes that hung around her like tiny fading stars.

She was not alone.

An Ascian stood opposite her. They stared at her expectantly, unmoving, silent. Delial frowned, overcome by a most peculiar sense of deja vu. She had seen this before.

_Ware thee the bearer of the Crimson Brand_, a voice nudged into her heart. She ignored it. She waited, watching. Any moment now, the Ascian would bare their teeth like a beast, splay their clawed hands, and charge.

She waited. They waited. The stars around them fell and rose in slow, artificial orbit. 

_Ware thee, for he is an Avatar of Shadow_, that voice urged her, _Whom death attendeth always_. But there was no strength left behind it, no force of will to veil her mind.

_This was where it began, was it not?_

They are different somehow, this Ascian, different in a way that did not occur to her to notice before. Their robe was black and long and adorned with the markings of Zodiark’s devout. Their mask was not the deep crimson of their peers, but rather a pitch black, and in place of the speaker’s fangs or the emissary’s hooked beak, they were adorned with an extra set of narrowed, scrutinizing eyes.

_Typical of him_, she thought, wondering how she could have ever forgotten. When did he stop being so familiar?

The first time such a vision was placed before her, Delial too wore robes of black. They were different then, motley and crude, better suited to an aspiring adventurer. Now, they were longer and simple, a modest echo of her silent companion’s attire. Such decoration was not meant for her. But him… he was His most earnest champion, His most favored and rightly so.

_Remember us._

She raised her head.

“Hades.”

Her voice rang out with a clarity that sounded alien in her own ears, and in that place it echoed out for an eternity. It struck him like a bolt of lightning, and his body flinched and straightened from its habitual slouch. He stopped himself from approaching, as if thinking better of it, hesitating. Time meant little enough to the immortal but millennia were still millennia and it had torn a gulf between them all the same. At last he brought himself to speak and his voice, too, took a timbre that did not suit his lesser, mortal shape. Deep and rich, it filled her heart like a song long forgotten.

“You’re a little late,” he said. There was a tremor in his voice, hidden deep beneath his brusque tone, beneath his sardonic nature. Ala Mhigo was gone, the cluttered parlor with its people-shaped holes was gone, but in those four words, Delial thought she felt the barest trace of home.


	13. Color and noise.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That they would become fast friends came as a surprise to exactly no one.

That they would become fast friends came as a surprise to exactly no one. Even as children they were brilliant in their own ways, reckless and bold and hungry for new experiences upon which to sharpen their teeth. Were one feeling whimsical, one might have suggested that they were two birds of a feather, two halves of a selfsame soul.

This, of course, was absurd. He was himself, and she was herself, and that was simply that.

But it was another game with which they amused one another while they were young and younger things. When it came time to leave their childhoods behind, it became a matter of principle that they held onto such fancy: like a promise, absurd and pointless, treasured all the same. Hades, for all his bluster, grew into a man with an unbearably sentimental heart. And she…

And _she_…

Well. We all know what became of _her_.

\---

“I’m not certain I understand what that’s meant to be is all.”

“Oh, of course you don’t! No imagination for anything that isn’t tall and rigid. Look, look: do you see its muzzle? How soft and round it is? Its back? Perfect for riding! It is a beast, a kindly sort of beast.”

“I can see it is a beast. But what is the point of it?”

“What is the point of anything? Why do I even bother with you? Haven’t you got another pylon or pillar or something to shape? Something dull and static and--”

“Alright, alright, I get it. I’m sorry.” Together they knelt and studied, held the concept of a concept of an animal aloft between their hands. Its body lolled, limp and useless, like a doll missing its stuffing. “Do… do you want a suggestion? Some constructive criticism?”

“Tell me.”

He looked at her, grinning impishly. “What do you think about antlers?”

\---

“She hates me. She hates me, I’m sure of it.”

“Calm yourself. Calm…. There. She doesn’t hate you. Who put such an absurd thought into your head?”

She was quiet, miserable, sniffling. Her mask had been set aside on the bench they shared that she could rub her knuckles into her eyes. These outbursts of hers came more and more frequently as of late and it tore her apart. Hrathi was the very definition of collected, of serene, the very image of power and wisdom. Hrathi would never act in such a way. How could she ever measure up?

“What is it that’s really bothering you? Tell me. Please.”

Thin as a cane, she was, short and narrow, so much so that even the smallest of robes seemed one size too large for her. Her body shook with deep and heavy sobs, angry that her emotions would betray her in so bothersome a way. In public, no less, and in front of him of all people.

“Is it because of that goat thing? We can always revisit--”

“It isn’t because of the goat!” she blurted. Fists balled tightly bounced off her lap, full of an energy she didn’t know how to deal with. He waited quietly as she, too, slowly felt her way around center again. Her sniffles became hushed and she didn’t gulp so much air.

She said, pitifully, “You’re going to leave me behind.” Her golden eyes, rimmed in red, couldn’t bring themselves to meet his. “You’re going to join the Convocation like everyone says you will and then what will I do? I haven’t the aptitude for--”

“You’ll just have to come with me,” he said. 

“But I can’t--”

“You’ll come with me.”

“But--”

“Come with me.”

When she stared at him, wild-eyed, he said again, one more time, softer: “Come with me.”

She kissed him. It was embarassing and stupid and thoughtless, and she recoiled immediately after to hiccup and sniffle some more. It was more than a little off-putting, too, to find she was beset by a new, fresh wave of tears. But she did not pull away when he scooted in closer beside her, and she did not pull away when his arm came to rest around her trembling shoulders.

“We shall go together,” he said, and she could find not a single reason in her soul to disbelieve him even the slightest.

\---

Their stars rose together. Hades was quickly renown for his sharp wit and his incomparable understanding of symmetries and patterns. Once, rumor spoke that he might one day take Lahabrea’s seat, but to Lahabrea’s great relief, it was Emet-Selch for which he was chosen. His ascension was met with great applause and hope for there was no doubt he would go on to do great works for the sake of his beloved Amaurot.

Of her there was less to say. Or more, depending on how who was asked and how charitable they were feeling. From youth, she was stunted almost beyond belief. She was great Hrathi’s daughter, after all, and should have excelled if not exceeded her mother’s talent. Instead, she struggled at even the simplest things, and was often steeped in melancholy because of it.

Nevertheless, her star did rise, albeit at a slower pace than her cherished companion. It cannot be said that she achieved the impossible, for any who put their all, mind and soul, to a task will surely find a way. Thus she, too, was named to the Convocation, having become masterful in her own way and in her own right. 

The principles of creation are multifaceted, as is the wisdom that lay behind them. Let it not be said that, while perhaps unconventional, her method were not sound. As any who favor the Hall of Rhetoric may remind you, it is through such differences in perspective that the whole of civilization is left better enlightened. Let there be no thought so outrageous and so anomalous that it cannot be adapted for the betterment of all.

\---

In another world, she wavered. It poured into her unbidden, unrelenting, such visions of a life echoing her own. Where the strain of light clawed at her heart, the memories chilled her to the bone. She was Delial Grimsong, liberator of Ala Mhigo, and while her path had veered dramatically from where she had begun, not once did she ever question who she was.

Not once did she think there was so much more, hidden and locked behind the sweet chime of Hydaelyn’s benevolent voice.

Her head throbbed as if to burst, and for many blinded moments she could not tell if it was the light that was finally threatening to overtake her. Ryne made it sound as if strain would put her in danger. To say she felt under strain then would have been a gross understatement.

“It returns to you,” Emet-Selch said. No - she called him Hades, once upon a time. She hadn’t noticed him draw nearer, hovering ghost-like, hesitant before the volatile energies within her. In that shadowed place, perhaps he was all it took to hold it at bay, to allow her the luxury of though and breath and consciousness for what little time she had left. “The things denied you. Know, then, the truths you-- that She has long denied. I spoke no lies.”

Then, softer, colder, “But you knew this already. Always have we been much alike, _hero_. Until the very end.”

Delial need not see his eyes to feel the weight of his judgement once again. While they adventured across Norvandt (if one could say an entity such as he adventured), she came to appreciate his capricious disposition. It was vanity, she thought, that saw her own habits echoed in him. How very charming, she thought, that these mundane things as temper and mood could infect the eternal as well.

But one by one the Lightwardens fell, and bit by bit his words became more barbed. As he shared more and more of his heart, so too did it seem more and more that she had wronged him in some unfathomable way. His contempt was personal, a grudge he’d held on to for untold ages. And there she was again, failing whatever measure he’d set for her. He must have thought it inevitable. She’d been condemned long before he approached them, approached her, in the Crystarium.

_And what is the point of this? Soon, I will end, and I will care no more._

_Why, then, does he care? Soon, I will end, and his course will carry him onward, as it always has and forever will. With or without me._

It boiled in her blood. If she was condemned, then she would know, she would remember.

She would remember it all.

\---

By the weight of her title, she had been afforded a lofty place high above the city. To tell the truth of it, it was ostentatious even for her tastes: the tiles, fine as they were, felt a little too cold beneath her feet no matter how much she willed it otherwise, and the ceilings towered far, far too tall for so runted an Amaurotine as she. It was a matter of tradition and ritual that she accept it, else she cause more gossip and offense than she already had. That it was left a mess, a hoard of little things kept in a perfect state of catastrophe, may as well have been Amaurot’s greatest secret: a silent, hidden rebellion curated by one of the Convocation no less.

She spent little enough time there, anyway, with Emet-Selch’s suite so near. For all the discomfort her own domicile offered her, his was far more offensive. The walls were a mess of sconces and he’d insisted on lighting even the most mundane of his chambers with multitudes _chandeliers_, no less than four, no more than eight: horrible and gaudy things that looked to her like little more than strange spiked crowns.

“Is that all you see?” His outrage was manufactured, mostly. She might have argued that it was better made than his horrible chandeliers. “You _buffon_. You uncultured _swine_. This perfect concert of pattern and balance and symmetry, and all you can say of it is, ‘weird crown’?”

“Isn’t it though?”

“No! It absolutely is not! In fact, I would very much like to see you do better!”

“I’m sure I could.”

“Hm! Then prove it!”

The challenge was issued. It, among other things, had become as ritual between them, one of the many ways they’d constructed to help her refine and hone herself. Ever was she a woman empowered by pride and spite. It was clear that she had become too comfortable lounging on his insufferably modern sofa, besides, so it was only natural that she would opt to stand a bit instead.

“For all your talk of your accursed symmetry, you’ve forgotten about a little thing called ‘flair’.”

“Now you’re just being petty!” he cried, gawking at her as if she’d sprouted a second head. “Me? Forgotten about flair? I think Elidibus would take offense to that. In fact, I’m certain his ears are burning right now and he knows exactly why, so offensive he would find it.”

“And you forget,” she countered, murmuring as she concentrated. Her hands came together and swayed apart in slow, gentle motions, spooling between her fingers threads of magic. “That dear Elidibus is a pianist in private, and a masterful one at that. I think he’d know a little something about flair.”

“Is he? How do you know that?”

“A little bird told me.”

“A little bird called…”

Her fingers bowed and she contracted them out and further out. Glistening pale and blue, a new creation began to take shape. “You can guess, if you wish. Or try to. I’ll not tell.” A maddening smirk turned her lips but she ignored her self-satisfaction for the moment. In her mind and in her hands, she dreamed of arcs and swooping lines, of something organic and living.

“Nabriales.”

“No.”

“Mitron.”

“Ha! No.”

“Ige-”

“No! Now quiet, please! I’m almost there.” Her hands flattened and she gave the construct one last pass over, making minute adjustments here and there, pinching out and pressing in a few final details. She stepped closer to him with this thing dimly glowing to where he slouched in a rigidly angled armchair, and then she picked a point and placed it high above his head. It was a little less than an arm’s length wide, a curve of blue light that rippled and glimmered throughout its thin membranous shape. 

He stared at it, lip curled. “An… umbrella?”

“Ah,” she said. “There is an idea.” And then she blew on it, one final puff of magic. Beads of light washed over it and fell past the edges, pinched here and there like the points of a star, its energies cycled again and again and again to mimic perpetual rain that fell and splashed intangible around the man seated beneath it.

Hades scrutinized it the same way he scrutinized everything: his brow was knit, his eyes were sharp, and in so doing he presented himself as a man ever prepared for disappointment. It was not his fault his standards were so high. Certainly it grated on her, but she’d come to respect and appreciate his meticulousness. There was one else so worthy of his station, after all. None else through whom she herself could manage to shine among the rest.

“It isn’t terrible,” he said at last. He raised his palm to catch one such droplet, and when it splattered and burst, it left upon his skin a rapidly waning splash of light. “Doesn’t make for much of a light source does it?” This was true: it was pale in its luminescence, washing over his face with only the faintest hint of crystalline blue. 

_But…?_

Even in private, Hades scarcely smiled. He could smirk and sneer with the best of them and, indeed, he seemed to take much delight in doing so especially when it meant agitating his compeers. A smile was something different entirely, drawn from a deeper place. She did not win one this time. It troubled her little enough. He loosened in his seat, leaned back and relaxed just enough. Deciphering the patterns in the light, she was certain, reading things from the way they fell around him, again and again and again. She was certain he understood.

“Would… you mind terribly if I kept it?”

“Such greed ill suits you, Emet-Selch, sir.”

“Borrowed it, then. Just for a while.”

She hummed and fussed as was appropriate, but it did not fool him. Nor was it her intent. It remained a victory, small as it was, and he could not deny her that either no matter how blasé he was about it.

“Just for a while. If only for you.”

\---

It was to her great credit that she was able to hold her tongue and temper. She told herself as much until it became mantra, something to focus upon to distract her from all else. Breaking precedence had become her modus operandi. It was the source of much amusement among the rest of the Fourteen, she knew. So too did she know of the things they said of her prowess, how little they actually considered her opinion.

“Wait.”

It was selfish to think he would have come after her sooner. The conclave must have just ended for him to have rushed after her so. It would be unheard of to walk out, as she did. If there was to be a firebrand among them, then it was only natural that it fall upon her. Who else could she be but Amaurot’s greatest malcontent?

“Damn you, _wait_\--”

“Tell me I am not alone in this,” she demanded, turning to him so abruptly he nearly loped straight into her. “Tell me ‘tis not I alone who doubts!”

“Quiet!” Emet-Selch’s mask mirrored well the rage upon his face. Its narrowed eyes only heightened his scowl. “Do you want to cause a panic? Never have I been so--”

“It is ego, can’t you see?” She shook in her anger, blind to the wary eyes that were beginning to draw upon them. Such outbursts were unseemly, such lack of control unheard of. “I will not deny he is masterful in all things, but to think himself a… a savior in asking so much--”

“How _rich_! Could it be that you think yourself worthy enough to doubt him?” It was his turn to cut her off, cut her down - his words, they were knives in her heart, so heatedly were they spoken. For as close as they were, they were no stranger to disagreement, but never before had the Conclave’s poisoned words come from his mouth. They stunned her into silence, and he did not hesitate to drive them through.

“That you, the weakest of us, would deign to mandate policy. That you, who cannot stand alone, would shame us all with this display.” More and more heads were turned their way, the quiet walks and errands of the citizenry distracted by the disruption. It could only weigh unfavorably upon her. “If you will not speak before the others, then tell me here: for what reason would you doubt Lahabrea’s plan?”

“He asks too much. He asks too much of us all.”

“_That_ is your complaint? Don’t be so childish. We are the stewards of this star, lest you forget,” Emet-Selch snarled at her, “And it is our imperative and our burden to protect it at all cost!”

“There has to be another way. How can I put faith in conjecture when it remains just that? To demand so many, on a whim... I cannot stomach it, Hades. If we truly are the stewards we think we are, then it falls upon us to save as many as we possibly can, not line them up for slaughter.”

“Then find it.” He jabbed a finger, issuing his challenge. “You have been with us, have you not? You have been there while we exhausted every possibility, every potential path to salvation. It is agreed that this is the way, and we cannot risk it all because you cannot ‘stomach’ the situation. There is no time left. Something will be done, with or without your blessing. With or without you.”

“Then prove it.” Their audience was tense, a shallow sea of grey masks and cautious frowns. She could feel their disapproval, and she could hear their collective gasps and murmurs when she reached up and relieved herself of her crimson mask. Emet-Selch was stunned in turn, stupefied by insolence so brazen. “Prove to me you can protect this star. But do so without me. I will not have this upon my hands.”

She let it go. A face of serenity, neutral and oblivious to the doom growing in the heart of their world, tumbled free and shattered upon the street. It was only fitting: destruction was but another facet of creation and there were none among the Fourteen who understood its music as well as she.

Emet-Selch called her name. The alarm in his voice tore at her: a schemer was he, an architect in so very many ways that it seemed astonishing that she of all his peers would be the one to confound him. It must have been sentiment that kept him blind to her heart, that let him hope the mantle of sage did not fit her as terribly as everyone thought. He was a kind man in that regard. It would punish him again if he let it, and she knew with absolute certainty that it would.

He called to her. She hastened past the dim and vacant stares of pale masks and reached out with her thoughts and with her magic, lancing through the fabric of their star where its madness had not yet made its claim.

Hythlodaeus, shamed and denounced of her station, left the city behind that day and crossed the sea alone.

Upon the next day, that final day, Amaurot was no more.

\---

The malaise passed through her centuries at a time, piling upon her already cracking shoulders the weight of ages beyond believing. They sprang to mind as vividly as the city Emet-Selch raised from its grave beneath the sea, every image and every word and ever touch etched upon an expanse of soul she did not know she had. Hungry and desperate as her mind was to recover and reclaim, she was yet troubled by the visions that tore through her for scarcely was there one that did not clash between what she knew and what she was remembering. The home in Amaurot was too large and the furniture in Ala Mhigo seemed too small, and all of it was just subtly wrong as if it had all been moved a few ilms to the left. The voices she'd known since birth murmured in strange new ways. The images of her family likewise became veiled by memory, masked behind gentle curves of white and gray though she yet knew the shapes of their faces beneath.

_What then of Hydaelyn? What then of the Empire?_ It pained her, overwhelmed her, strained everything she was to filter through the flood. Long had she believed that years of her youth had been wiped from her, taken by Imperial influence, but to consider everything that was crashing over her now--

She cried out, clutching at her head. Impassive, impacable, Emet-Selch towered over her head. The weight of his stare crushed her further still: a stare she knew, a stare she'd known, a stare that had been her world when the world was whole. "Seven times rejoined," he intoned, "And yet you are still so..."

His voice stretched out through that grey eternity, threading through the memories that assailed her. Once, as a surprise, she'd made an attempt to bring some interest into a freshly inhabited studio. The flowers, intended to bloom and sway along with the rise and fall of the sun, nearly burst through his parlor wall for how aggressively they ended up growing instead. He'd called her reckless, then, and stubbornly refused her efforts to mend and repair what damage had been done. A few of the flowers had survived the ordeal: delicately rising stems and bowed white bells sweetly scented. Later, she would find that they had been quarantined but cared for nevertheless in a small uncharacteristically modest pot kept in his study.

The pot was the very same one she used to keep in her bedroom. He’d taken it with him one night, insisting he was going to rescue the withered plant within. She kept forgetting to water it, and he kept forgetting to remind her. “How do you manage being such a mess?” he’d asked her that same night. It annoyed her a little, as he never seemed overly eager to complain when they were stumbling into the very mess he played at detesting. When she pressed him of it, he only pressed back, grinning in that fiendish way. “Well, I suppose it’s because you’re…”

An array of white-hot eyes stared down at her.

“I like to think it didn’t have to be this way. But you just couldn’t leave it be. And that Exarch,” he muttered, his tone darkening and with it, their surroundings. He paced around her on a floor she could not see, and as the agony loosened its grasp upon her spine and limbs, she fell upon hands and knees. There was no comfort to be found: the grey realm was quickly turning cold as frost, dark as night, unyielding as the magicked stone of old Amaurot. “Ahhh, when I get through him, when I figure out his little secrets… We could do much good with the tower, my compeers and I. To think I could be so surprised by an artifact of my own creation!”

He paused somewhere behind her, to the left, to scoff. “Well, mostly of my own creation. I suppose I ought to give credit to Allag. They were so fascinating, you know? Ever so keen, ever so imaginative. You would have liked them. But I guess they were before your time.”

Chastised again, another error in construction, When will you ever learn? Its fine, its fine, we will try again, but you really ought to pay attention. Cheeks burned. Standing still and grim as a tombstone, Hrathi watched on, unmoved. Again. Again. Again.

“A broken thing like you cannot possibly hope to bear that which we must. It is not memory alone you have lost, but your essence! Your magick! Your soul! Perhaps it is better this way, then: a faster demise, mostly whole in mind if not in spirit. It quickens and grows and soon you’ll shed this flesh of yours. Not even your friends can shield you from this.”

Hades rounded her around again, and squatted down before her as he did upon the Crown. She could not see his face anymore: only the hard points of narrowed, hateful eyes, scowl atop scowl.

“Have you any idea what became of our city when you left?”

Ruin and nothing but. There were survivors, far too few survivors, but they were all tainted by madness and terror, every last one. She had to give them something. They had to have something to believe in, or else--

“Have you any recollection,” he said to her, “Of what you did?”

Schedules and timetables were as worthless as inaction. Someday, life would fall back into balance. Someday, the poisons would recede from the earth. Someday, when there was no life left to take, He would return the world to the ones who ruined it.

_Hythlodaeus?_

She had to give them something. Through Her, maybe they could...

Partaking of their life energies, She rose, a mirror of the Dark One of from across the stagnant sea. He wanted too much, demanded too much, took too much of what remained of Her children. Her own soul, along with the souls of those who lived away from the hungering shadow, took flight upon the wings of mother Hydaelyn.

Oh, but She was beautiful. Oh, to behold such radiance, such warmth! Never again shall we want for Light. Never again shall we fear the Dark.

An icy hand clasped her chin and lifted her face, a single rough motion that sent her vision spinning again. He shook with rage, trembled with hatred, and the darkness that was his wrath was quickly overtaking the cold neutral grey plane of nowhere upon which she was captive.

“It was you.”

_Hythlodaeus, what have you done?_

“It was _you_.”


End file.
